As the fifth edition of the Valletta International Baroque Festival enters its second week Kenneth Zammit Tabona tells Iggy Fenech all about the past, present and future of this internationally acclaimed baroque extravaganza.

When you’ve lived in Malta for a long period of time, it’s easy to forget just how special our capital city actually is. A living museum with its very own, distinct identity – not just from other European capitals but also from other Maltese towns – Valletta is a fortified baroque gem with an incredible history… And it’s that unique cultural, architectural and historical distinctiveness that the Valletta International Baroque Festival has sought to celebrate and promote for the past five years.

“Baroque is part of the very fabric of the Maltese identity,” says Kenneth Zammit Tabona, who five years ago founded the festival. “You can see it in the churches, in the titular statues, in the marching bands, in the decorations that clad the streets in every town and village of Malta… And Valletta is the ultimate baroque statement.

“Yet, up until six or seven years ago, baroque music was not really known in Malta… Or, rather, not known that well. Many knew of and listened to Bach, Vivaldi and Handel, but that was it. What should be played and what instruments should have been used, no one knew.”

So much so, Zammit Tabona continues to explain, that when the European Union Baroque Orchestra (EUBO) came to Malta for the summer festival, it was discovered that they could not perform in the open air because the gut strings of the  signature, historically-informed instruments of the baroque, such as the harpsichord and theorbo,sagged due to the heat and the humidity.

The concert was then held within the air-conditioned Ambassadors’ Hall in Castile and a whole range of instruments that hadn’t been played in Malta for many-a-generation were rediscovered.

Baroque is part of the very fabric of the Maltese identity

This inspired Zammit Tabona to found a festival that would reposition Valletta as a baroque star, using all of its best-known and historically-important buildings, including St John’s Co-Cathedral, the Bibliotheca, the Manoel Theatre and the Museum of Archaeology as venues. The cultural-event drought that had traditionally followed Panto season also lent itself well to the multi-week festival.

“Because all the elements were right, the festival immediately caught on and the knowledge of it has since grown to such an extent that we’re now inundated by a tsunami of requests for performances,” Zammit Tabona says. “These past couple of editions, we’ve had up to 1,000 requests to choose 24 from, in fact!”

Zammit Tabona, who is also on the board of directors of the Reseau Europeen de Musique Ancienne (European Early Music Network; REMA), believes that this popularity, even within foreign circles, is due to a number of a factors. Among them is the fact that, due to numerous big names performing for the festival, it has become considered as one of the most prestigious festivals of its kind in Europe; moreover, with tickets going for an average of €20 a pop, the festival makes it worth it for foreigners to travel to Malta and enjoy the baroque spectacle that’s on offer for two and a half weeks.

This year’s edition is no different. Since the fifth edition kicked off last Thursday, Valletta has been graced by a rendition of Charpentier’s Te Deum by the Ensemble Correspondances, a concert by the Concerto de’ Cavalieri, and an Atys Parody with Puppets by the Centre Musique Baroque de Versailles.

The Rival Queens

And, it’s only the beginning as sopranos Vivica Genaux and Simone Kermes are set to take the stage for The Rival Queens, a concert that explores the artistic legacy of two legendary singers, namely Francesca Cuzzoni and Faustina Bordoni. Jory Vinikour will perform pieces by Handel, Rameau, Bach and Dulphy for The Harmonious Blacksmith and two of Handel’s most famous works, written for King George I and King George II of England, will be played by the Valletta International Baroque Ensemble (VIBE) in Music Fit for a King, for the very first time on the islands.

“Legacy, however, is incredibly important. Whether it’s intellectual, artistic or through collaboration,” Zammit Tabona insists. “Having great performances and full houses is all good, but we want to leave something behind that goes beyond the here and now. Part of this is VIBE, the resident ensemble of the festival, which play music by Maltese composers when abroad as well. And also the return of soprano Claire Debono to the Maltese stage is quite noteworthy.”

As Malta enters 2017 with the EU Presidency and gets ready for Valletta 2018, the Baroque Festival with Zammit Tabona  at its helm is ready to continue inspiring through the music it was set-up to promote. VIBE, in fact, will be performing at four official EU concerts over the coming months in Madrid, Paris, Berlin and Malta, while between 2017 and 2018 the Manoel will be putting on Mozart’s three collaborations with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte: Le nozze di Figaro, Così fan tutte and Don Giovanni.

Moreover, with next year’s programme for the Baroque Festival almost finalised, Zammit Tabona  is adamant that the same formula is to be kept. “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it,” he jokes.

Nicholas Dautricot

But the incredibly high level that the festival has managed to achieve is set to go up even more, with EUBO returning for a concert and VIBE receiving specalised training in playing selected pieces from Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea by Italian experts in the genre. In addition to all that, more pieces are being commissioned by the festival in the baroque idiom to continue building upon the repertoire of national and international composers.

“Baroque is a voyage of rediscovery and contemporary is a voyage of discovery, so they are the two music genres with a lot of common that lend themselves well to hybridisation. Our belief is that Vivaldi should be played on Vivaldi strings, but modern pieces that are tributes or odes to baroque can sound perfectly fine when played on modern instruments…”

The baroque festival is here to both preserve the genre and to continue building on its majestic legacy and we can expect to see a lot more from it within the next few days, months and years.

The Valletta International Baroque Festival is on until January 28. A full programme is available online www.vallettabaroquefestival.com.mt.